COMM 326 - Social Media and Social Change Literacies

Units: 4
Introduces the literature about and direct experience of social media literacies: research foundations and best practices of individual digital participation and collective participatory culture, the use of collaborative media and methodologies, and the application of network know-how to life online.

Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous.
Grading: A-F grading only.
Course Typically Offered: Fall ONLY

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Cultivate an ability to discern, analyze, and manage the way they deploy their attention;
Learn to use social media tools for collaborative work;
Understand the need for critical consumption of information;
Understand and practice appropriate online behavior;
Hone their ability to find the answer to any question with the right kind of search;
Train their thinking to assess the accuracy of the answers they find online;
Learn the modes, consequences, some of the responsibilities and dangers of different kinds of digital participation, from curation to blogging;
Map the ways the changing media landscape has impacted the way young people learn;
Identify how participatory cultures work to support the growth and contributions of their members;
Recognize and be able to respond to core debates surrounding the value of bringing new media technologies and participatory culture practices into the classroom;
Outline some of the ethical challenges which youth face in their roles as media producers and members of online communities;
Describe our current understanding of the connections between participatory culture and civic engagement, including the relationship between the digital divide and the participation gap;
Summarize and critique core theorists working in the field of New Media Literacy;
Comprehend the framework of basic social skills and cultural skills associated with the new media literacies;
Deploy course concepts in the development of an independent research project which makes a substantive scholarly contribution.